Saturday, 17 January 2009

Freeport: video proves payment of bribes to a minister.

The journalist Felicia Cabrita makes this revelation in the daily newspaper, "Sol," available tomorrow (Saturday) morning.

After having revealed that a Portuguese minister was amongst those suspected of corruption in the investigation into the Freeport case, obliging the office of the Attorney General of the Republic to intervene with a press release denying that information, the journalist Felicia Cabrita returns to the subject, confirming the existence of a video which proves the payment of bribes to a member of the former socialist government.

According to the journalist, a video recording of a conversation between an English administrator from Freeport's holding company and Charles Smith, one of the associates of the consulting company Smith & Pedro, alludes to payments of bribes to a Portuguese minister of António Guterres' government.

In statements to SMM, a British police source indicates that the report of the ongoing investigation in the United Kingdom contains a list of suspects - 15 as he and the daily newspaper Sol indicate - where the name of the current prime minister, José Socrates, figures.

The video containing the recorded conversation between Freeport's administrator and Charles Smith, confirms the payment of bribes to several Portuguese politicians, naming a minister in the socialist government of Antonio Guterres, the former prime minister, who is not, himself, implicated.

The investigation still ongoing in the UK could result, if justice follows its normal course, in a prosecution for crimes of corruption and tax evasion in the approval for the construction of the Freeport commercial complex in Alcochete, at the southern edge of Lisbon.